Bringing some cheers to the individual tax payers, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley halved the income tax rate to 5 per cent for individuals having taxable income between Rs 2.5-Rs 5 lakh compared to 10 per cent earlier.

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley in his Budget for 2017-18 last week, proposed to "create an integrated public sector 'oil major' which will be able to match the performance of international and domestic private sector oil and gas companies."

Using Big Data analytics, the Income Tax Department has segregated different kinds of deposits and large ones like more than Rs 1 crore that do not match with income tax returns filed in previous years will be taken for "layer enforcement".

At a panel discussion on Union Budget-2017, Mr Rangarajan also said that though the adverse impact of demonetisation will wear off as the currency availability improves, some affects will not go away even as sectors like real estate will have to rethink their business models.